


Transformations of the Darren

by AverillOpal



Category: Otherfaith Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, Looking for Truth, Search for Wisdom, Shapeshifting, Transforming into various forms, Wandering the worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 17:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18254741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AverillOpal/pseuds/AverillOpal
Summary: the Darren -- the Otherfaith god of questioning, peace, and mediation -- travels among the worlds in search of the wisdom to cure the uncertainties that ail him. Along the way, transformations occur...





	1. On Raven-Wing

When the Darren stretched his arms toward the sky, feathers burst forth from his pores: jet black shining feathers that put the night sky to shame. Shifting into his raven wings, the Darren took flight. It was no ordinary mode of transportation. Flying as a bird, the Darren traveled between realms. He left the bright world where he had been born of star-fall and entered a world where the people worshipped a single star that lit their world like a great flame. the Darren's star-heart smoldered in his chest, sublimely bright, and was quite unlike the larger Sun that shone down relentlessly upon the human world. How different the humans were from fairies -- they lacked horns, feathers, wings, claws, fur, and fins -- and they had no idea.

the Darren's vision shifted and morphed, changing until he found himself in the human world. It looked like the West in _some_ ways, but not in other ways... and it certainly didn't _feel_ like the West. He hid himself in the forest, deep in its heart where only hermits, mystics, and wild beasts ventured. the Darren unfolded his black wings and the feathers fell to the forest floor and crumbled into embers. The god took on a human-like form, but he kept his ivory antlers on his head and his eyes that burned as red as molten lava. It was by these features that the humans recognized him and knew of his liminal power.

The god walked to a shelter in the woods made of branches, mud, and leaves. He revealed a single ray of Little Sun unto that darkened place, and allowed that star of his divinity to brighten the damp air around the lean-to. A frightened, bewildered face emerged from the shelter and the human stumbled out into the light.

"For-Forgive me, I didn't know--" the hermit began, but the Darren silenced him with a gesture.

"Tell me, what have you learned, living alone?" asked the Darren, watching the human intensely.

"Your grace... I have learned how hard it is to be among man... and how maddening it is to be without him."

the Darren nodded at these words.

"And what have you learned about peace?" the god asked.

"Your grace, I have learned that there is no peace without war, not even in the human soul."

And the Darren was unhappy. Because he forever sought the way to end the sufferings in all hearts, but found that the more he pushed himself to be a god of peace, the more he was a god of justice -- of retribution. He thought of the lives he had taken -- all justified by his divinity and by the Ophelene's -- and he felt deeply troubled that there was no true answer. Truth -- it was what he always thought about; it was what Little Sun was made of. And so he left the hermit and in traveling in the space between worlds, turned within -- to Little Sun.

They floated together within the Darren's heart. It was a realm of impossibly bright light that lived within him. The rest of the Darren's heart was filled with lava rather than blood, but its core pulsed with Little Sun's celestial rays.

///


	2. the Light Unseen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Darren journeys into his heart to conference with Little Sun, the pure core of the star that fell to form half of the god’s body when it collided with the earth in Western Faery. 
> 
> (Little Sun also represents Truth. She is said to emit a brilliant light that is warm and yellow-white or “gold”, but usually descriptions of her light (as an “unseen light” that blinds those who look for it) are more metaphorical.)

"Truth*, you shine with a light unseen, but felt, for none can look upon you without slipping into utter blindness," said the Darren. Little Sun spun and pulsed with energy. The heart of the Darren was the soul of the star from which he had fallen. And oh, what a fall it had been. To think it would lead along all those numberless footsteps to where he was now? Who could have guessed? 

"Holy Truth*, tell me: what is your knowledge? And what of your wisdom?" the Darren asked.

"Oh Holy Wanderer, I am the compass pointing ever true," said Little Sun, and the Darren realized that within the blinding light of the star-heart, he had inherited the compass of his Holy Mother. What, then, did he inherit from his other parent, the boy-god of dreams, mirrors, and shadows? There was the rich well of fierce lava in his belly, alight by star-fire: an endless cycle of creation and destruction of all he was, had been, and would be.. His molten form was in constant motion, and yet the Darren -- his compass ever true -- was  _ himself _ peace within war and war within peace, one within many and many within one, illumination within shadow and shadow within illumination.   

He was a being of infinite contradictions. And yet here he was, questioning his very heart -- surely there was something within him -- perhaps the thing that kept him questioning -- that was pure. Some soul perhaps. But all the Darren knew was Little Sun the blinding bright heart, Truth*, the spectral deer, Doubt*, and the other fragments of his being. They were a bunch of pieces, each torn in a different direction, extending outward and inward like a series of calculations weaving fractal spirals. How could he guess at knowledge and stability when he was a cursed fragment, energies divine and otherwise mixing together in a chaotic jumble?

the Darren tried to understand. And maybe that was his weakness.

 

///


	3. the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Darren visits a human city to seek the counsel of a wise mystic, whose answers trouble the god deeply.

Spinning spinning spinning, pulsing, beating, shivering... the Darren awakened to his reality shaking violently. He reached for his bird form, and as the ink black feathers erupted from his skin, the chaos around him began to realign itself, settling. the Darren flapped his wings and soared through the void, a space of terrible darkness and horrible light, which consumed him when the Darren was lost in doubt.

It was a puddle on the ground that caught his attention. The spinning and swirling stopped, In the shallow mirror of water on pavement, the Darren could see the reflection of tall skyscrapers and glowing lights. He landed beside the puddle in the form of a crow. Folding his wings, the Darren looked to the sky. It was blank and pale grey, but the silver buildings rose like angular teeth along the jagged skyline.

Spying an alley between buildings, the Darren flew into it, and took on a humanoid form. In the city, the Darren found the human mystic in the greenest place: a park, where an elderly man played chess against himself. The god sat down upon the empty seat across from the man. 

"You're here," said the old mystic, without looking up from his game.

"Yes," the Darren said, "And what is it you have learned?" The energy of Doubt* was bursting forth from the god and the Darren could barely keep his pain within him. He tried his best to keep a cool head, but Doubt* was the incarnate madness that he was afflicted with -- an insatiable force with no end to its appetite; a seeker with no faith, who would rove endlessly and yet deny all he found. 

The old man laughed, and said, "I have learned that there are some things that even a wanderer will not know, for, having wandered, one will no longer know the lack of wandering." the Darren's heart shivered.

"You say I have over-sought these truths," the Darren said.

"I say that there is some knowledge which precludes all other knowledge," the old mystic replied. 

the Darren disappeared in a flash of smoke and dark feathers.

 

///


	4. the Kindling Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filled with anger and unrest, the Darren is transformed into a mountain for many years, seeking his answer in stillness and in facing himself. But what if the West needs their god back?

Was anger on the part of a god better known as righteousness? It was these sort of questions that Doubt* devoured like a crazed demon. Indeed, the villain could always find something else to investigate, something else to poke at, something else to keep the larger Darren weary from lack of rest rest. What to do when the god of peace knows no peace within himself?

And so the Darren became like a mountain, for even though Doubt* kept him spinning, the god could keep the spinning deep within himself where it condensed into a light—a bright light of curiosity. And in that form, was the Darren relieved of Doubt*. The mountain remained still for many ages, and the Darren found that he could watch the Sun and the Moon as they spun around the worlds. All the stars rushed by each night, and the Darren was content, as Doubt* was contained.

“Well,” said the fairies, “We have lost our molten god to the rocks. Perhaps his Holy Mother’s earthen influence has weighed upon him too strong?” And the fairies wondered at the loss of the Darren, because he had entered a state quite like sleep or death.

The Sun and Moon danced through eons, and the stars shot through the sky again and again as the years went by, and their intricate journeys and leaps and spiraled over the centuries. 

“Hark!” said the fairies many years later, “What was it we ever called that hulking mass?” and they pointed at the mountain’s height in the sky.

“Why,” said the other fairies in reply, “We called him in the ancient tongue ‘the Darren’ and he has never done anything since.” And indeed, the Darren had remained still as a mountain for many, many years -- so many years, in fact, that no one had said his name at all during the interim. But now, their voices called him. Their words echoed through his slumber.

“Darren! Darren! Darren!” the fairies chanted, “Let he who is righteous no longer be consumed by rigid stone!” And, slowly, as the fairies began to pronounce his name, the Darren came back to life. It was as though he had been awakened from a deep sleep -- although it was a sleep of eras!

Each pronunciation of the Darren’s name pulled at that compass within the god’s heart: the one which tethered him to the Other World, to the Other People, to the Otherfaith -- to Western Faery. And so the Darren awoke, and while he had slept, all of his anger had burned away. He was now united with the kindling light of Curiosity rather that Doubt’s all-consuming ill.

The Darrenesque appeared again in the forests of the West, and the people fell to their knees at the sight. “Indeed, the phantom stag is a sign that Truth, Doubt, and Integrity have come!” they said, and by these names the Darren was known. He did not show himself in divine glory upon his return; instead, he rumbled along the earth till he reached the Gate. Once in the West again, the Darren was filled with a sublime joy; he had learned to contain his Doubt and had unleashed from it a new self -- Curiosity -- which gave him deep and holy purpose.

And this is how the Darren wandered the worlds, became a mountain, achieved Curiosity, and was the same but different -- yet returned to his people a new god.

 

///


End file.
